ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 7 -- United States Patent no. 12,594,680, issued on April 7, was assigned to NHK SPRING Co. LTD. (Kanagawa, Japan).
"Flexible structure and method for producing same" was invented by Takafumi Hirata (Kanagawa, Japan), Yuki Hotoda (Kanagawa, Japan) and Yuki Hayakawa (Kanagawa, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A flexible structure with a multi-joint function is formed by connecting flexing parts in which wave washers are stacked and welded to each other. The flexible structure includes a first flexing part, a second flexing part, and a connection part. The first flexing part and the second flexing part are capable of flexing and extending. The connection part is welde...